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Meta has updated its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses to give it more hands-free capabilities, starting with a new feature that lets you share images as Instagram Stories without having to take out your phone. You can just say "Hey Meta, share my last photo to Instagram," if you've already snapped the photo you want. But you can also say "Hey Meta, post a photo to Instagram" if you want to be more spontaneous and take a picture to upload as a Story on the spot. It's for those moments you don't mind sharing with your followers, unedited, in real time. 

In addition, you'll now be able to get your glasses to quickly play your tunes on Amazon Music. Just say "Hey Meta, play Amazon Music" to start listening through the smart glasses' open-ear audio system. And yes, you'll be able to control the audio with the device's touch controls or with your voice. If you have a Calm account and need to decompress, you can listen to guided meditation or mindfulness exercises on your smart glasses instead. To do so, just say "Hey Meta, play the Daily Calm." And if you don't have a Calm account, you can get a three-month subscription for free if you follow the on-screen prompts in the Meta View app. All these features are "rolling out gradually," so you'll eventually get access to them if you don't have them yet. 

Last month, Meta also rolled out multimodal AI for the Ray-Ban smart glasses after months of testing. It enables the smart glasses to act as a personal AI gadget outside of the smartphone, similar to the Rabbit R1 and the Humane AI Pin. Thanks to that update, you can now ask the smart glasses to describe objects in the environment, identify landmarks and read signs in different languages, which sounds especially useful for frequent travelers. Meta also gave the device the ability to make hands-free video calls with WhatsApp and Messenger.

You might start to see more Airbnb properties with EV accommodations in the future. The online platform is teaming up with ChargePoint to get more Airbnb hosts to install EV chargers, Business Wire reports. The partnership means Airbnb hosts can access an exclusive ChargePoint package and save money. 

ChargePoint is giving Airbnb hosts 25 percent off whichever charger they pick and another $100 off installation fees. Chargers start at $399, meaning customers will get at least $100 off on that purchase alone. However, the installation deal is only available when purchased through the Airbnb page on ChargePoint's website. Airbnb is also giving another $200 off charging hardware for the first 1,000 Airbnb hosts to make purchases.

The partnership could lead to greater success for hosts. According to Airbnb, searches for properties with EV chargers increased by over 80 percent between 2022 and 2023. Also, it claims that, on average, listings with EV chargers get more income and nights booked than those without one. 

Individuals and organizations are still struggling with how and how much to integrate AI into daily life. Rarely has that been more clear than a case out of Emory University in which the school went from awarding students with an entrepreneurship prize worth $10,000 for their AI-powered studying tool to suspending them for it, 404 Media reports. No, the students didn't suddenly misuse the tool, known as Eightball, in any way; they did just as they said they would, and all the while, Emory promoted them — until they didn't.

Eightball allowed students to turn any coursework or readings into practice tests or flashcards for studying. It also connected to Canvas — the platform professors at Emory use to share course documents with their students. A demo video for Eightball called it similar to ChatGPT but trained on Canvas courses, looking at everything from lectures to slides, rather than students having to upload each PDF individually to the tool. 

Emory's Honor Council accused Eightball's creators of cheating, plagiarizing and helping other students violate the Honor Code in November 2023 and the duo shut the tool down. The Council also claimed Eightball attached to Canvas without permission, despite it being stated during the awards competition in Spring 2023. The body launched an investigation into the students, which found that Eightball hadn't assisted with cheating and that the student creators had never lied about its capabilities.

Yet, the Honor Council recommended a year suspension for one of the students, Benjamin Craver, and expulsion for the other (who ideated Eightball). The Council's director called the situation "unprecedented" due to the harm it could cause at Emory. Craver was eventually suspended for the summer and fall 2024 semesters — after which he would need to apply for readmission. He was also given a mark on his permanent record and required to complete an educational program. His co-creator received a one-year suspension.

Craver filed a lawsuit on May 20 against Emory detailing how Eightball came to be, teachers' support and use, articles promoting it in the university's newspaper and that the students had always been transparent in its use. Among other evidence, the lawsuit also shares words of support from the associate dean of Emory's business school about Eightball following the award and her choice to connect the students with an outside entrepreneur, an Emory Alumnus. "While nothing about Eightball changed, Emory's view of Eightball changed dramatically," Craver's lawsuit states. "Emory concedes that there is no evidence that anyone has ever used Eightball to cheat. And to this day Emory advertises Eightball as an example of student innovation and entrepreneurship."

It’s been a long time coming, but Sonos’ first pair of wireless headphones are now in the hands of our tame audio expert. The Sonos Ace takes all of the company’s audio know-how, packaged in a more skull-friendly way. As well as the usual noise cancellation you’d expect with a pair of high-end cans, they also have some home theater-friendly tweaks.

Billy Steele was deeply impressed with the headphone version of its TruePlay tuning, called TrueCinema, which maps your location for better virtual surround. If you already own a Sonos soundbar, you’ll be able to pull the sound to the Ace in a heartbeat for those late-night movie sessions. Plus, Sonos’ ability to upscale audio that hasn’t been mastered in 7.1.4-channel Dolby Atmos should make even the most mediocre sound, uh, sound good.

Billy’s a fan, and you might be too once you’ve read his write up — so much so that we’ve got all the details for how you can pre-order right here.

— Dan Cooper

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Wearable AI Pin maker Humane is reportedly seeking a buyer

Yours for the knock-down price of… around a billion.

Humane

Humane, makers of the AI pin that made the wrong sort of splash on its debut, is reportedly up for sale. The underbaked hardware and software was greeted with poor reviews that ensured it probably wouldn’t become a best seller. Now, the startup has called in financial advisers, hoping a deep-pocketed soul will pick it up for between $750 million and a cool billion. There’s an old saying that we die twice in this world, and I think it goes something like this: First, when your major product flops, and second, when someone picks you up for patent-licensing scraps.

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Ninja Creami review: This machine makes your frozen dreams come true

It’s the dawn of the smart ice cream age.

Photo by Sam Rutherford / Engadget

Ninja has launched a new smart ice cream maker that leverages a recently expired patent used by high-end chef companies. The Creami is, as Sam Rutherford explains, a kitchen-sized drill press that “spins” frozen ice cream bases with your choice of flavors. It may be big and noisy, but he says the quality of product you get out the other end is worth the aggravation.

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Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door review: A Switch remake (mostly) befitting a masterpiece

It’s been in the wilderness for more than a decade.

Nintendo

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a GameCube-era RPG regarded by many as the best title in the series. Sadly, it was never ported to any successive console until now, as lamented by our Devindra Hardawar. He’s put the updated version through its paces to tell you if it’s worth exploring for a first, or second, time.

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Nintendo is buying (PDF) Florida-based studio Shiver Entertainment from the Embracer Group, which is splitting up its rather messy gaming empire and is letting go of certain assets. Shiver was founded in 2012 and is mostly known for working with publishers and developers to port games to the Switch, including couple of Scribblenauts titles and Hogwarts Legacy. Nintendo will acquire the "boutique-sized studio" in full, making it a fully owned subsidiary that will continue working on Switch ports and developing software for multiple platforms. 

The Japanese gaming company isn't known for gobbling up small studios and developers. In its announcement of the deal, it said it's aiming "to secure high-level resources for porting and developing software titles" with this purchase. By buying Shiver, Nintendo is also showing that it's committed to the Switch platform, which will remain its primary business for years to come. 

As Nintendo Life notes, Nintendo may have decided to purchase Shiver to acquire its talent, as well. The studio's CEO, John Schappert, is an industry veteran who used to oversee Xbox Live, the Xbox platform software and Microsoft Game Studios. He also served as Chief Operating Officer at EA and at Zynga. Nintendo didn't say how much it's paying for the studio, but it doesn't sound like the purchase will make any considerable impact on its finances. "The Acquisition will have only a minor effect on Nintendo’s results for this fiscal year," the company wrote in its announcement. 

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The tech startup Humane is seeking a buyer for its business, just a bit over a month since it released the AI Pin, according to Bloomberg. Engadget's Cherlynn Low described the AI Pin as a "wearable Siri button," because it's a small device you can wear that was designed with a very specific purpose in mind: To give you ready access to an AI assistant. Humane is working with a financial adviser, Bloomberg said, and is apparently hoping to sell for anywhere between $750 million and $1 billion. 

The company drummed up a lot of interest and successfully raised $230 million from high-profile investors. However, a billion may be a huge ask when its AI pin was mostly panned by critics upon launch. We gave the AI Pin a score of 50 out of 100 in our review due to several reasons. It was slow and took a few seconds to reply when we asked it questions. The responses were irrelevant at times and weren't any better than what you could get with a quick Google search. Its touchpad grew warm with use, it had poor battery life and its projector screen, while novel, was pretty hard to control. The Humane AI Pin also isn't cheap: It costs $700 to buy and requires a monthly fee of $24 to access the company's artificial intelligence technology and 4G service riding on T-Mobile's network. In a post on its website, Humane said that it was listening to feedback and listed several problem areas it intends to focus on.

Another dedicated AI gadget, the Rabbit R1, is much more affordable at $199, but it's still not cheap enough to make the category more popular than it is, especially since you could easily take out your phone to use AI tools when needed. Humane's efforts to sell its business is still in its very early stages, Bloomberg noted, and it might not close a deal at all. 

Super Mario Maker and its sequel are terrific games that let fans create and share their own Mario levels with ease. But it was a bit of a disappointment that Nintendo only factored in the 2D Mario games. None of the plumber's 3D incarnations have made it to a Mario Maker title to date. So thank goodness for modders.

A pair of modders named Arthurtilly and Rovertronic have released an open-source Super Mario 64 mod that aims to make it a cinch for players to create and share their own levels. You'll need your own (legally obtained) Mario 64 game file and a separate piece of software to infuse the mod into it. It's even possible to use Mario Builder 64 on a Nintendo 64 if you have a supported flashcart.

You'll have more than 100 parts to build your levels with. The creation tool includes some custom parts from a previous mod, so you have extras like permanent powerups at your disposal. To share your creations and find those made by others, the recommended places to look are a website for Mario level modders and Rovertronic's Discord server.

It'll be interesting to see if ridiculous 3D kaizo-style levels start popping up, while the mod could allow speedrunners to create custom training grounds where they can practice strategies. Personally, I'm hoping for creators to build levels that rely on half-A presses to beat.

The US Department of Justice arrested a Wisconsin man last week for generating and distributing AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). As far as we know, this is the first case of its kind as the DOJ looks to establish a judicial precedent that exploitative materials are still illegal even when no children were used to create them. “Put simply, CSAM generated by AI is still CSAM,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco wrote in a press release.

The DOJ says 42-year-old software engineer Steven Anderegg of Holmen, WI, used a fork of the open-source AI image generator Stable Diffusion to make the images, which he then used to try to lure an underage boy into sexual situations. The latter will likely play a central role in the eventual trial for the four counts of “producing, distributing, and possessing obscene visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and transferring obscene material to a minor under the age of 16.”

The government says Anderegg’s images showed “nude or partially clothed minors lasciviously displaying or touching their genitals or engaging in sexual intercourse with men.” The DOJ claims he used specific prompts, including negative prompts (extra guidance for the AI model, telling it what not to produce) to spur the generator into making the CSAM.

Cloud-based image generators like Midjourney and DALL-E 3 have safeguards against this type of activity, but Ars Technica reports that Anderegg allegedly used Stable Diffusion 1.5, a variant with fewer boundaries. Stability AI told the publication that fork was produced by Runway ML.

According to the DOJ, Anderegg communicated online with the 15-year-old boy, describing how he used the AI model to create the images. The agency says the accused sent the teen direct messages on Instagram, including several AI images of “minors lasciviously displaying their genitals.” To its credit, Instagram reported the images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which alerted law enforcement.

Anderegg could face five to 70 years in prison if convicted on all four counts. He’s currently in federal custody before a hearing scheduled for May 22.

The case will challenge the notion some may hold that CSAM’s illegal nature is based exclusively on the children exploited in their creation. Although AI-generated digital CSAM doesn’t involve any live humans (other than the one entering the prompts), it could still normalize and encourage the material, or be used to lure children into predatory situations. This appears to be something the feds want to clarify as the technology rapidly advances and grows in popularity.

“Technology may change, but our commitment to protecting children will not,” Deputy AG Monaco wrote. “The Justice Department will aggressively pursue those who produce and distribute child sexual abuse material—or CSAM—no matter how that material was created. Put simply, CSAM generated by AI is still CSAM, and we will hold accountable those who exploit AI to create obscene, abusive, and increasingly photorealistic images of children.”